Elias surprised himself - and perhaps even Charlie - with a faint smile at the remark regarding asbestos. It was one of Charlie's attempts at avoidance, certainly; but it was also rather amusing. Then again, if she hadn't looked like she was about to go on, then he probably wouldn't have found the freedom to smile. He didn't want to fight with her, but he would have his answers.
"Voices," Elias responded, once she stopped struggling with her words and placed end punctuation on her sentence by that deep breath of hers. "Voices that belonged to a memory -- and the memory was and was not your own. Is this how it seemed to you?"
His own experience had not been solely an audible attack; his had been flashes of light that felt like tears in his mind. Through those cracks, he'd seen... something. He couldn't name it. But in the worst of the pain, he heard voices himself. Voices, and then a vision, of a memory that felt very much like it belonged to him -- but was not of him, and was not of his own past.
It was a risk, telling her. She might well think he was straight delusional. He felt like he was, some days. But Elias had a dogged attachment to the truth, no matter how brutal. And if he were to demand it from this ... woman, then he would give her nothing less in return.